IBM Releases Tough Storage

November 10th, 2006: IBM has pulled back the curtain on two new midrange storage servers aimed at companies it says require “hardened” infrastructures due to their unique operating conditions.

Telecommunications providers and the oil and gas industry are two that IBM has immediately singled out for its new servers, the System Storage DS4700 Express and DS4000 EXP810 expansion unit. According to the company, the new servers are all Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3-compliant, making them suitable for environments with strict requirements.

The new systems feature built-in support for 48-volt DC power, while the enhanced DS4700 Express series is designed with connectivity to 4 Gbps attached host systems in mind. In addition to to this, it houses 16 disk drive bays inside the controller and up to 8 host ports which can be expanded with a number of EXP810 units, each containing another 16 drive bays. This gives the system scalability up to 56 Terabytes of physical capacity and 112 drives.

“Telecommunications clients have ever increasing storage requirements, as well as restrictions on the types of systems they deploy,” says Charlie Andrews, director, IBM system storage product marketing. “The enhanced DS4700 is designed to help address these needs and lower overall costs through high performance with less storage infrastructure through fast data access, fast backups, and fast restoration, copying and mirroring of data.”

Available from December 8, prices for the DS4700 Express Models, 70-DC and 72-DC will start at US$26,100 and US$52,000, respectively. The DS4000 EXP810 will start at a list price of US$12,100.

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